This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is Chris Guillebeau here with you on the weekly recap. Now we have just finished week number 49 of the show. Can't believe we are rolling toward the end of the year.
It's been such an amazing year. And of course, as you may know, Side Hustle School will continue in 2018. So even though the end of the year is approaching, there's so much more on the way. Team and I have been talking a lot about our plans for next year. We are all just so excited to keep bringing you these stories every single day.
Now, before I go into the Side Hustle stuff today, I just want to make some personal comments about the holidays. If this doesn't apply to you, then just ignore it. You can skip this part. But what I wanted to mention is that for a lot of people, the holidays are a joyous season. And there's lots of celebration and goodness and family time, all that kind of stuff.
But at the same time, there are also a lot of people that struggle during this season. And just in case that's you, if the holidays are hard for you in general or this year in particular, you've had some bad stuff happen or just not really looking forward to the next few weeks, I just want to say that you're not alone out there and lots of other people feel that way. I often feel that way myself. I don't want to talk about it on this show, but from time to time, I've struggled with depression and anxiety and the holidays have been some of the most difficult times for me. So just in case you're going through a hard time over there, I often think of that quote, "Be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." As I said, you're not alone.
You can get through this. And if you're having a really hard time, I understand I've been there too. I just want to ask you to reach out to somebody and don't be afraid to talk to someone about what you're going through. And last but not least, hang in there. That's my holiday encouragement for everyone who's struggling this year or just has a hard time with holidays in general.
I hope you don't mind. And now let's get on with the show. [Music]
If you are in New York City or nearby, I'm going to be doing a special event just a couple of days from now. If you're listening in real time, it's going to be Wednesday, December 13th at WeWork. There are several WeWork locations, but if you come to sidehustleschool.com/tour, you can get a free ticket and learn all about it.
It's part of the Sidustle Tour, but I'm actually going to be doing some new stuff that I haven't done before. So I hope you could join me for that if you're around. Otherwise, I mentioned last week that I've been doing my annual review. That is this process where I go away for several days and kind of reflect on the year, look ahead to the next year and set some goals in various categories. I set some personal goals, some career goals, some writing goals, financial, spiritual, wellness, relational, all kinds of stuff.
And overall, it's probably the number one practice that has helped me the most in the past decade. And I've also been sharing parts of my annual review for most of the past decade. If you're curious and learning more about it, either my process or how you can apply this for yourself, just come to sidehustleschool.com/annualreview. That's actually going to redirect you to my personal blog and you can see a whole bunch of posts there, both from this year and from yours in the past. And if you have a review process of your own, if you do something similar, I'd love to hear about it.
So let me know. I want to read an email to you from Lisa. Lisa writes in to say, "Chris, had to tell you what I did today. Been listening to side hustle school all year. Like a lot of your listeners, I'm sure I've had a bunch of ideas floating around, but I still hadn't actually moved forward on anything.
I started to read the side hustle book. I went through six days of it, but then I got stuck. So I decided I would devote the day before Thanksgiving to side hustle camp. I made myself an agenda, lit a fire, put on comfy clothes, and then spent the day reading the whole book so I would see the big picture of how it would go. Then I went back through the book and scheduled the exercises to complete by the end of the year.
I now know I'm finally gonna launch my project before 2017 ends. The most exciting thing is I bought a domain name that I've always wanted, and I also signed up for a web hosting account. What a day, I'm super excited. I knew you'd be happy to hear this. Feel free to share the idea of side hustle camp to anyone else who's listening.
Sometimes you need to create a fun and devoted day to get yourself unstuck." As I said, that was from Lisa. Lisa, thank you so much. That's awesome. I love the whole concept of side hustle camp, taking a day to go through stuff. It sounds similar to that annual review process that I just described that I've been going through this week.
So all the best to you and definitely let us know what happens with your project. I also have a call-in question from a listener. Gonna play that question and provide a short answer. And just a reminder to you, if you have a question or a comment, I'd always love to hear from you. And to leave those remarks, it's really simple.
Just call 8449HUSTLE. That's our hustle hotline. It's also 844-948-7853. And you can leave a little voicemail for me there. Or if you prefer it, you can record it on your phone, iPhone, Android, flip phone, pay phone, and then email that voice note to podcast@sidehustleschool.com.
So let's hear from someone who's out there, I believe in Cleveland, Ohio. - Hi, Chris. It's Mimi from Cleveland, Ohio. I love Side Hustle School. I hope you'll keep it up next year, even if it's only a few days a week.
My side hustle that I would like to start involves doing a podcast, but I feel very stymied about the mechanics of it. And I wondered if you could share the exact mechanics of how you record your podcasts and what you recommend, especially for beginners. Thank you. - Hey, Mimi, thank you so much for the question. And this is quite timely because just about two weeks ago, I released an extended episode all about podcast lessons.
And it did go into mechanics, as well as content and philosophy, what I've learned basically from hosting this show this year. And we also had some notes from our producer, AC Valdes, about some technical stuff, along with some referrals for places you can go to read more. So I mentioned that because some people may have heard that, but a lot of people may have missed it. So once a month, I do this longer episode about a specific topic, call it an extended cut, and you can listen to all of them and see all the resources for all of them. It's all free at sidehustleschool.com/extended.
So the podcast lessons is the most recent one there, but there's also a bunch of others about writing a book, about behind the scenes of a million dollar Etsy shop, about pricing, strategy, where ideas come from, how to choose ideas, all that kind of stuff. Once a month, there's one of those, and you can check them all out at sidehustleschool.com/extended. [Music]
All right, looking back on this week, I just wanna pull out a couple of lessons. I know that most of our listeners actually go through most of the episodes, but of course, if you haven't had a chance to do so, you can go back and listen to it, whatever you're interested in. It's always there for you in the archives, it's always free.
And one of my favorite episodes this week was number 338, the first one of the week. Santa's letter writing gig hustles down the chimney. Now this is the kind of project that is seasonal by nature. People only need letters from Santa at one time of the year, pretty much the rest of the time, the other 10 and a half months of the year, it's like he's exiled somewhere, only to be reborn from the ashes like a jolly overweight Phoenix in November and December. I think seasonal projects like this are really interesting because one of the concerns I hear from people, one of the fears or the worries is a sense of overwhelm, a sense of starting something that never ends, a sense in kind of biting off more than you can chew or getting into something that just kind of ends up taking over your life.
And there's a lot we could say about that. We'll do a whole episode about it at some point. But maybe one suggestion for now is to find a seasonal project like this, or even if it's not seasonal by nature, like the Santa letter writing gig. What if you just decide that your side hustle is seasonal or you put some other kind of limitation around it? Something I've heard from service providers who get overwhelmed with having too many clients, they kind of lose sight of why they started their project in the first place is to create these limitations where you say I'm only going to have X number of clients each month.
And maybe I've got six clients that want to sign up, but I'm only going to take three. And I'll put the other three on a waiting list or whatever the numbers turn out to be for you. I never want you to forget that your side hustle is there to support your life. A side hustle is to get you closer to the goals that you've set, the things that you believe in. So it shouldn't be something that overwhelms.
And you do have control over it. Unlike a lot of other things in your life, perhaps, if you have a job, you're not fully in control of everything you do there. Even if you have a lot of autonomy, sometimes your boss might ask you to do something that you're not excited about. Or you might have to cover for a coworker, or there's some administrative task you really don't care for, but you just have to do. Or with your side hustle, there can be some administrative tasks like that.
But the broader point is you do have a lot of control, you have a lot of autonomy. So if you're worried about being overwhelmed, then just think about what limits you can set. Or if it's the kind of business that essentially grows based on the amount of time you put into it, well, decide in advance how much time you'll spend. Look at your week's calendar, look at your month's plans, see what's coming up, see what kind of responsibilities you have in the rest of your life, and then slot in whatever side hustle time you can with the understanding that you're not gonna keep going. You're gonna work those three hours on Thursday nights, or that half a day on Saturday, or whatever it turns out to be, even if it's just 15 minutes a day, and then you're gonna move on.
In other words, I don't think you have to be overwhelmed. I think there are strategies you can use to prevent that. Also wanted to mention briefly episode 341 about the nonprofit employee who sells 25,000 gourmet ice pops. I didn't know until I recorded that episode that popsicle is actually a trademark term. So you have to call them ice pops or all sorts of other names that I'd never heard before.
But more importantly, that episode highlighted some really basic advice that I think is just worth restating. If you're new to this world of side hustling, a really simple practical thing you should do at the outset of starting your project is to open a designated bank account for all the funds that come through it, all the money you take in, as well as all the expenses you pay out. It just makes things much easier and cleaner as you go along. And you should also sign up for a payment processor, which can be as simple as creating a business account on paypal.com. You might have a personal PayPal account already.
If so, it's very simple to just open an additional business one. Or in some cases with PayPal, you can actually use that personal account for business. But generally speaking, it's best to kind of keep things separate and clean. Also, since we're restating advice, in that story, the woman who sold 25,000 gourmet ice pops, I think it was year two or something, she quit her job to focus full time on the project. But of course, as we see over and over, she only did that when it made sense to do so.
She actually went through this little forecasting exercise with a spreadsheet, looking at all of her expenses, her business stuff, her personal stuff, and then she made the decision to go for it. So I think I mentioned in that episode as well, that there's a free backup napkin spreadsheet you can get as part of the Side Hustle Book resources. If you have the Side Hustle Book and you haven't registered it yet, just come to sidehustleschool.com, click the register your book link. I try to be really subtle with titles. And we're gonna send you a bunch of free stuff, including that backup napkin spreadsheet that you can use.
Lots of other fun stuff, of course, as always. And just a quick little sneak peek to what's coming next. This week, I got a story about a software engineer who designs a wallet tool after getting locked out of his apartment. This very practical basic need goes on to earn $50,000 in its first year and eventually sells 500,000 units. Definitely a big success story.
I'll bring that to you tomorrow. I also love how practical it is. It's not like, here's how I'm gonna go change the world as a thought leader and give TED Talks. It's more like, no, I'm gonna give people something useful. That's simple and they can understand right away.
And then by the way, I'm actually gonna go on to make a lot of money from it. So great story coming up tomorrow. There's also a criminal defense attorney who starts a men's and women's accessories company. And of course, so much more. You never know what you're gonna get.
I think I said in last week's episode, we're gonna have this marijuana story about some guy who makes cannabis accessories and ends up earning $20,000 in a weekend with these accessories. That story actually got bumped to this week, so it's coming up soon. And I have mentioned a couple of times, Side Hustle Society, our upcoming training course and community, which is gonna launch in January. I'm so excited. I'm gonna do a more detailed check-in message for you soon about that.
But over and over on my tour stops and in my inbox, I'm getting people asking for that community to connect one another. Where can we go to get peer feedback? How can we get some more detailed training about these things you talk about? Well, it's gonna be called Side Hustle Society and it's coming very soon. In fact, in less than a month.
I'm about ready to close things out for the week now. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being part of Side Hustle School. You are the reason I make this show. I love getting emails from people like Lisa who say that they're taking action.
They've been listening for a while. They've had ideas, but now they're finally getting started. Listen, I understand. Sometimes it takes a long time to get started. For every Side Hustle idea I pursued, I probably had a dozen or more that I thought about, but then ended up changing my mind about.
So don't feel bad if you haven't started, but do think about when you're gonna start and what you're gonna make. You wanna make sure that you feel supported in your quest to create that new source of income. That's what it's all about. Economic empowerment through a new source of income without quitting your job. And by the way, I can't make this show on my own.
I actually have the help of a wonderful production team, which is led by A.C. Valdez. He's in Washington, D.C. I've got Vera Carruthers in New York. And the show notes and host wrangling, all kinds of other stuff are by my assistant, Whitney Karinic in Portland, Oregon.
Last but not least, there is the official show cat, Libby Gillibow, whose duties are somewhat ambiguous, but she likes to be acknowledged. "Side Hustle School" is part of the Onward Project, which was founded and is led by Gretchen Rubin, a good friend of mine and also the author of "The Four Tendencies," "The Happiness Project," other mega-best-selling books. And perhaps you've heard her podcast "Happier" with Gretchen Rubin. If for some reason you haven't, you should check that out as well. You can do that in Apple Podcasts.
You can do that wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're checking stuff out, if you wanna do something awesome for us, you can give us a little rating or review. Honestly, it makes a huge difference. It helps other people discover the show. We have grown throughout the year by listeners spreading the word and posting on social media and even just telling their friends, like, hey, you should listen to the show because it's gonna help you.
It's gonna get you something you need. It's gonna provide examples, actionable advice that you can in some ways literally take to the bank. We've got more than 1,000 five-star reviews so far this year. I'm so happy that the show is resonating with people. I assure you, the best is yet to come.
Stick around and remember, this is an investment in yourself. And conveniently, it's a free investment. How about that? I'm gonna sign off now. I hope to see you tomorrow and every day next week with more stories and those actionable ideas.
Episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern Time every day. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
